Times Like These
by Honour Society
Summary: A series of vignettes surrounding Seattle Grace and the unqiue doctors who work there. Rating is subject to change. Chapter seven now up.
1. McDreamy

**Disclaimer: **Don't own anything, don't make any profit from this.

**A/N: **I love _Grey's, _but my ideas aren't long enough for full fics. So I got this idea. Enjoy. **_Oh, and one more thing: Feel free to suggest pairings, situations and characters to be focused on coming chapters. _**

**Times Like These**

_-A Series of _Grey's Anatomy _Vignettes- _

**ONE: McDREAMY**

You sure as hell aren't McDreamy.

You're no one's dream guy. Someone's mistake, sure. A forgettable one-night-stand, definitely. Never in your life have you been taken home to meet the girl's parents, pet her dog, make her sister blush furiously. That was the job of someone like Derek.

Someone like him, not a womanizing dog like you.

Thoughts such as these are flooding your brain as you stand beside Meredith Grey. Her sand-coloured hair is swept into a bun, but her hair tie is doing little to keep the delicate strands away from her piercing blue eyes. She shivers in the moonlight. It occurs to you, that under different circumstances, this would have be completely romantic.

Except you are both wearing scratchy blue scrubs and the two of you are waiting for an ambulance to come. Somewhere behind you, are your respective groups of interns. They complained that it was too cold and too late at night to be standing outside waiting for the ambulances, so they opted to wait within Seattle Grace Hospital's heated halls.

Just as Meredith turns towards you, you notice her bitten nails. It is things like these that drive you crazy. "Alex? You okay?"

You offer a reassuring smile and say, "'Course. When's the fricking ambulance coming?"

She laughs.

You sure as hell aren't her McDreamy.


	2. The Secret Ingredient

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own anything, don't make any profit from this.

**TWO: THE SECRET INGREDIENT **

Izzie Stevens cracked her knuckles, fixed the floppy bun her flaxen hair was tied up into and prepared herself for a weekend spent baking. Her roommates and colleagues and random strangers on the bus — _everyone!_ — had told her entering the annual Seattle Grace Bake-Off was a stupid idea.

Izzie, as strong-willed as ever, merely shrugged off their doubt. She took everything in stride. Her friends should know by now that when she committed to doing something, she did it as best as she could.

Except — for some bizarre reason — her chocolate cupcakes tasted like crap. First she thought it was the icing; surely there was too much sugar in it. She re-iced the cupcakes, using a whole new batch of chocolate icing, this one with far less sugar. For some reason, they still didn't taste right.

Then, she assumed it was the eggs. It was a pleasant surprise for her when she found the untouched 12-pack of omega-three eggs in Meredith's notoriously poorly-stocked fridge. Izzie was an optimist; if God decided to give her eggs, who was she to question His Will?

She pulled on a sweater. It wasn't hers. Maybe George or Alex's, but she didn't think they would mind. Besides, if it was Alex all she would have to do was bat her eyelashes a bit to apologize. And George… Well, in spite of all the awkwardness between the pair, she was still proud to call him her best friend. So Izzie shot out the door and fast-walked to the nearest grocery store.

When she came back, a new carton of eggs and a current copy of _Us Weekly _in hand, she was quite surprised to find a note, written on pink cardstock sitting atop the table. Her iced cupcakes, the ones that tasted so icky and wrong, were beside the note.

Curious to its content, she examined it between pink-polished fingers.

__

Add a little sunshine. It makes everything taste better.

__

-George


	3. Rights and Wrongs

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own anything, don't make any profit from this.

**A/N: **For DeathByMushrooms. Still open for requests. This one is in Derek's POV, looking back on the night he first met Meredith. Um, I guess it's MerDer and a little bit of Addek, if you squint.

**THREE: RIGHTS AND WRONGS**

Did I do the right thing? Was I wrong in doing that? These are questions that we, as humans, find ourselves asking day after day. We constantly question our every word, our every fleeting gesture. Am I giving off the wrong signal? Does the make me look sexy or stupid? Maybe this is all a part of life — this constant need for reassurance from our friends, colleagues, _hell_, even complete strangers.

Maybe this bottomless chasm of doubt that was slowly nibbling its way through my soul was the reason I found myself in Seattle that weekend. Maybe it was her. I kept telling myself that it was for the job; head neurosurgeon at Seattle Grace was better than the position I'd worked at a private health centre in the city, known for its patients who often came from shooting pilots in LA to get treatment for the hard drugs or liquor they suddenly couldn't live without. Sometimes, I even fooled myself into believing I was here for the ferry boats. Yeah, that's right. Ferry boats.

Any one of these reasons could've been true, but I knew they were all lies. Made-up. Pretend. Excuses, really. The real reason? Although my conscious mind hadn't quite figured it out, I think I just needed a fresh start. A blank slate. I needed to forget about her — no matter how many sleepless nights in a trailer it took, dreaming of her flaming red hair, her blue eyes which oozed with sympathy, her fiery spirit, her... Addisonness. More than her, I needed to forget about her and him together. My best friend. My wife. At what point did my life turn into some low-budget ABC Family drama?

Thoughts such as these were drifting in and out of my mind as I stumbled through the door of Joe's bar. It was a nice place. Better than some of the tiny West Village dives in the city. I straightened my posture, took a look around. It was filled with young, scrubs-wearing men and women. _Interns. I_ sighed to myself at the sight of their tired faces, lined with concern, and the happy smiles pasted on top. My own days as an intern where spent flipping through articles in a medical journal, alerting my resident of his pages, and desperately trying to get into neurosurgery.

"Another one, Joe," the petite young woman beside me said, only slightly tipsy. The first thing I noticed about her — and I'm not proud of this — was how different she was from Addison. Her sand-coloured hair was neither quite blond nor brown, and hung in a wavy curtain over her slim shoulders. She was petite, maybe 5'7 or so to Addison's 5'10. It was then that I realized I would have to stop comparing her to my wife.

"New to the city?" She flashed me a white-toothed smile and I found myself nodding 'yes.'

"I can tell," she lowered her voice, leaned closer to me. "You still have that..._smell._"

I laughed louder than I had in a while. "I don't smell like Seattle?"

Now it was her turn to laugh. "Nope."

Another thing I noticed about her was the fact that she wasn't wearing any scrubs. A good sign, I suppose. She wasn't dressed up by any standards, Addison always — I stopped, mid-thought. This girl from the bar, well, she was no Addison. The comparisons really would stop now.

More formally than I would have liked, I stuck out my hand for her to shake. With a polite smile, she took my hand and pumped it slowly. A steady hand, always a good sign...

"Meredith."

"Derek."

The events that happened next... Well, I'm not very proud of them. Then again, whose to say Meredith and I would ever get together if that fateful night hadn't unravelled as it did. I still wonder about that night. Probably, more than I should. On the other hand, whenever Meredith, who I'm proud to call my wife, asks me with a frustrated look on her pretty face what I'm thinking, I can always truthfully say, "The first night we met."


	4. Maybe

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own anything, don't make any profit from this.

**A/N: **This one is pretty AU. Addek/Maddison. An Addison-centric drabble.

**FOUR: MAYBE**

As the long-limbed redhead cradles her only daughter in her arms, she contemplates the meaning of life. Okay, not really. She's just hoping Derek made something for dinner.

Her unmanicured finger brushes by the sleeping newborn's nose. A gust of air greets her touch.

She smiles. Maybe he'll never have to know.

Maybe her having blue eyes will be enough to reassure him of her paternity. Maybe he won't even doubt it. His faith in her is astounding.

Maybe, when he's walking his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day, it won't matter that the honour belongs to his best friend.

One can only hope.


	5. Questions and Answers

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own anything, don't make any profit from this.

**A/N: **Future-fic, post season four finale (minor spoilers...?). Angsty MerDer; Meredith-centric.

**FOUR: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS**

If there was one thing Meredith Grey never expected to become, the answer was a mother. From when she was a little girl, staying up late, playing gin in the on-call room with one of Ellis' interns, waiting for her mother to return from some important surgery or another, Meredith swore to herself and anyone who would listen that she was "never, ever, in a million years going to have kids."

She didn't want them to feel the way she did. The way she still felt, even now, as an adult with a medical degree in her bag of tricks. Surgery and motherhood — they just didn't go together.

And yet, she was dealing. Derek wanted kids. She wanted Derek. What was she supposed to say? "No way, I'd make the worst mother ever," didn't quite slip off one's tongue.

So the young doctor begrudgingly agreed to have children — as many as he wanted — with her former boss and now husband. The digital clock's red block letters pronounced "4:00 AM" on the dot. Yawning, she pulled herself out of bed. The way her ratty old Dartmouth tee exposed her burgeoning baby bump wasn't helping her feel better about her state of motherhood. Another yawn.

"Meredith?" Without turning to look at the man she had kissed in front of 230 of their closest friends and family and said "I do," to with a heave of her chest, she could hear him fumble around in their bed. Maybe his fingers were tracing the space she'd occupied the night prior. Maybe he didn't care anymore. Sometimes she wondered if their relationship could be quantified by the sum of their marriage counselling sessions. They would never separate, never divorce. He loved their kids — he referred to them as "angels," sometimes — too much to put them through that. And for that, Meredith was grateful.

Because if their was one thing she didn't want for her children, the answer was for them to experience her childhood.


	6. Normalcy

**Disclaimer: **Disclaimed; it's all Shonda.

**A/N: **Thanks for all your reviews DeathByMushrooms.

I don't even know why I decided to wr this one. It just came to me. Savvy, Addison's old friend from NYC, remember her? Yeah, well this is in her first-person POV. No pairings. Enjoy!

Set…sometime in season two, I guess.

**CHAPTER SIX: NORMALCY **

Addison shows up at Joe's about five minutes after me. I'm already a bit tipsy, but it doesn't feel the same. I have no breasts to flash. No husband. I'm incomplete; a painting Picasso started but lost his muse for. One he couldn't finish. My life was just beginning, but the cancerous genes that live inside all of us chose me to target.

"Addie." I smile as I best as can, but it feels crooked and wrong.

"Sav!" She hugs me with more enthusiasm than I offered her, so I wrap my arms tightly around her neck. This human closeness…feels amazing. Even with just a friend, I can pretend I'm normal. Too bad I know I'm not.

"He left me."

The tall redhead slumps her shoulders, her perfect blue eyes glue to her black Prada sling backs. A sad smile. "Same here."

"Good Lord," I say, sounding every bit like my mother. "What happened to us?"

"We got old."


	7. Heartbeats

**Disclaimer: **Disclaimed; it's all Shonda.

**A/N: **During the season four finale. Izzex; kind of angsty, because fluff makes my head hurt. I had to Google the name of her boyfriend in early season one.

**CHAPTER SEVEN: HEARTBEATS **

Once everything was said and done — though the only real soundtrack to their night of passion was Alex's sobs and Izzie's shushing, "It's okay"-ing — Izzie began to count the tiles on the walls. It was a nervous tic she shared with most everyone on the planet. These were her favourite moments. Not during the sex, but just after when you got to act completely amazed before having to either a) creep out of the room, drunk as can be or b) collapse in the arms of your loved one. If only for a night.

"Izzie?"

"Yeah?" She flopped on her side, being sure to keep the white cotton bed sheet wrapped around her upper torso.

"I love you." Tears still stained his eyes and he was recovering from grief and quite possibly drunk and/or on hard drugs by the way he'd been acting, but the words still sent tingles running down her bare arms and made her feel woozy and light-headed.

Always one to be organized, she made a mental list of people she loved romantically: _Hank, Alex, Denny, Alex, George, Alex… _It always came back to that arrogant, womanizing, son of a —

"I love you, too, Alex."

The next morning, their conversation would be forgotten. Izzie, ever the organized one, kept that memory for herself, filed away in her mind where only she could touch it.


End file.
